Yankee Don't Go Home: Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920-1950 (The Luther Hartwell Hodges Series on Business, Society, and the State)

In the aftermath of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, Mexican and U.S. political leaders, business executives, and ordinary citizens shaped modern Mexico by making industrial capitalism the key to upward mobility into the middle class, material prosperity, and a new form of democracy-consumer democracy. Julio Moreno describes how Mexico's industrial capitalism between 1920 and 1950 shaped the country's national identity, contributed to Mexico's emergence as a modern nation-state, and transformed U.S.-Mexican relations. According to Moreno, government programs and incentives were central to legitimizing the postrevolutionary government as well as encouraging commercial growth. Moreover, Mexican nationalism and revolutionary rhetoric gave Mexicans the leverage to set the terms for U.S. businesses and diplomats anxious to court Mexico in the midst of the dual crises of the Great Depression and World War II. Diplomats like Nelson Rockefeller and corporations like Sears Roebuck achieved...